In far bygone days,
in the North, there lived a well-to-do farmer, who had seven sons
and one daughter. And the youngest of these seven sons bore a very
curious name; for men called him Assipattle, which means, “ He who
grovels among the ashes/"

Perhaps Assipattle deserved his name, for he was rather a lazy boy,
who never did any work on the farm as his brothers did, but ran
about the doors with ragged clothes and unkempt hair, and whose mind
was ever filled with wondrous stories of Trolls and Giants, Elves
and Goblins.

When the sun was hot in the long summer afternoons, when the bees
droned drowsily and even the tiny insects seemed almost asleep, the
boy was content to throw himself down on the ash-heap amongst the
ashes, and lie there, lazily letting them run through his fingers,
as one might play with sand on the sea-shore, basking in the
sunshine and telling stories to himself.

And his brothers, working hard in the fields, would point to him
with mocking fingers, and laugh, and say to each other how well the
name suited him, and of how little use he was in the world.

And when they came home from their work, they would push him about
and tease him, and even his mother would make him sweep the floor,
and draw water from the well, and fetch peats from the peat-stack,
and do all the little odd jobs that nobody else would do.

So poor Assipattle had rather a hard life of it, and he would often
have been very miserable had it not been for his sister, who loved
him dearly, and who would listen quite patiently to all the stories
that he had to tell; who never laughed at him or told him that he
was telling lies, as his brothers did.

But one day a very sad thing happened—at least, it was a sad thing
for poor Assipattle.

For it chanced that the King of these parts had one only daughter,
the Princess Gemdelovely, whom he loved dearly, and to whom he
denied nothing. And Princess Gemdelovely was in want of a
waiting-maid, and as she had seen Assipattle’s sister standing by
the garden gate as she was riding by one day, and had taken a fancy
to her, she asked her father if she might ask her to come and live
at the Castle and serve her.

Her father agreed at once, as he always did agree to any of her
wishes; and sent a messenger in haste to the farmer’s house to ask
if his daughter would come to the Castle to be the Princess’s
waiting-maid.

And, of course, the farmer was very pleased at the piece of good
fortune which had befallen the girl, And so was her mother, and so
were her six brothers, all except poor Assipattle, who looked with
wistful eyes after his sister as she rode away, proud of her new
clothes and of the rivlins which her father had made her out of
cowhide, which she was to wear in the Palace when she waited on the
Princess, for at home she always ran barefoot.

Time passed, and one day a rider rode in hot haste through the
country bearing the most terrible tidings. For the evening before,
some fishermen, out in their boats, had caught sight of the Mester
Stoorworm, which, as everyone knows, was the largest, and the first,
and the greatest of all Sea-Serpents. It was that beast which, in
the Good Book, is called the Leviathan, and if it had been measured
in our day, its tail would have touched Iceland, while its snout
rested on the North Cape.

And the fishermen had noticed that this fearsome Monster had its
head turned towards the mainland, and that it opened its mouth and
yawned horribly, as if to show that it was hungry, and that, if it
were not fed, it would kill every living thing upon the land, both
man and beast, bird and creeping thing.

For 'twas well known that its breath was so poisonous that it
consumed as with a burning fire everything that it lighted on. So
that, if it pleased the awful creature to lift its head and put
forth its breath, like noxious vapour, over the country, in a few
weeks the fair land would be turned into a region of desolation.

As you may imagine, everyone was almost paralysed with terror at
this awful calamity which threatened them; and the King called a
solemn meeting of all his Counsellors, and asked them if they could
devise any way of warding off the danger.

And for three whole days they sat in Council, these grave, bearded
men, and many were the suggestions which were made, and many the
words of wisdom which were spoken; but, alas! no one was wise enough
to think of a way by which the Mester Stoorworm might be driven
back.

At last, at the end of the third day, when everyone had given up
hope of finding a remedy, the door of the Council Chamber opened and
the Queen appeared.

Now the Queen was the King's second wife, and she was not a
favourite in the Kingdom, for she was a proud, insolent woman, who
did not behave kindly to her stepdaughter, the Princess
Gremdelovely, and who spent much more of her time in the company of
a great Sorcerer, whom everyone feared and dreaded, than she did in
that of the King, her husband.

So the sober Counsellors looked at her disapprovingly as she came
boldly into the Council Chamber and stood up beside the King’s Chair
of State, and, speaking in a loud, clear voice, addressed them thus:

“Ye think that ye are brave men and strong, oh, ye Elders, and fit
to be the Protectors of the People. And so it may be, when it is
mortals that ye are called on to face. But ye be no match for the
foe that now threatens our land. Before him your weapons be but as
straw. ’Tis not through strength of arm, but through sorcery, that
he will be overcome. So listen to my words, even though they be but
those of a woman, and take counsel with the great Sorcerer, from
whom nothing is hid, but who knoweth all the mysteries of the earth,
and of the air, and of the sea.”

Now the King and his Counsellors liked not this advice, for they
hated the Sorcerer, who had, as they thought, too much influence
with the Queen; but they were at their wits’ end, and knew not to
whom to turn for help, so they were fain to do as she said and
summon the Wizard before them.

And when he obeyed the summons and appeared in their midst, they
liked him none the better for his looks. For he was long, and thin,
and awesome, with a beard that came down to his knee, and hair that
wrapped him about like a mantle, and his face was the colour of
mortar, as if he had always lived in darkness, and had been afraid
to look on the sun.

But there was no help to be found in any other man, so they laid the
case before him, and asked him what they should do. And he answered
coldly that he would think over the matter, and come again to the
Assembly the following day and give them his advice.

And his advice, when they heard it, was like to turn their hair
white with horror.

For he said that the only way to satisfy the Monster, and to make it
spare the land, was to feed it every Saturday with seven young
maidens, who must be the fairest who could be found; and if, after
this remedy had been tried once or twice, it did not succeed in
mollifying the Stoorworm and inducing him to depart, there was but
one other measure that he could suggest, but that was so horrible
and dreadful that he would not rend their hearts by mentioning it in
the meantime.

And as, although they hated him, they feared him also, the Council
had e’en to abide by his words, and pronounced the awful doom.

And so it came about that, every Saturday, seven bonnie, innocent
maidens were bound hand and foot and laid on a rock which ran into
the sea, and the Monster stretched out his long, jagged tongue, and
swept them into his mouth; while all the rest of the folk looked on
from the top of a high hill—or, at least, the men looked with cold,
set faces, while the women hid theirs in their aprons and wept
aloud.

“Is there no other way,” they cried, “no other way than this, to
save the land?”

But the men only groaned and shook their heads. “No other way,” they
answered; “no other way.”

Then suddenly a boy’s indignant voice rang out among the crowd. “Is
there no grown man who would fight that Monster, and kill him, and
save the lassies alive? I would do it; I am not feared for the
Mester Stoorworm.”

It was the boy Assipattle who spoke, and everyone looked at him in
amazement as he stood staring at the great Sea-Serpent, his fingers
twitching with rage, and his great blue eyes glowing with pity and
indignation.

“The poor bairn’s mad; the sight hath turned his head,” they
whispered one to another; and they would have crowded round him to
pet and comfort him, but his elder brother came and gave him a heavy
clout on the side of his head.

“Thou fight the Stoorworm!” he cried contemptuously.

A likely story! Go home to thy ash-pit, and stop speaking havers”;
and, taking his arm, he drew him to the place where his other
brothers were waiting, and they all went home together.

But all the time Assipattle kept on saying that he meant to kill the
Stoorworm; and at last his brothers became so angry at what they
thought was mere bragging, that they picked up stones and pelted him
so hard with them that at last he took to his heels and ran away
from them.

That evening the six brothers were threshing corn in the barn, and
Assipattle, as usual, was lying among the ashes thinking his own
thoughts, when his mother came out and bade him run and tell the
others to come in for their supper.

The boy did as he was bid, for he was a willing enough little
fellow; but when he entered the barn his brothers, in revenge for
his having run away from them in the afternoon, set on him and
pulled him down, and piled so much straw on top of him that, had his
father not come from the house to see what they were all waiting
for, he would, of a surety, have been smothered.

But when, at supper-time, his mother was quarrelling with the other
lads for what they had done, and saying to them that it was only
cowards who set on bairns littler and younger than themselves,
Assipattle looked up from the bicker of porridge which he was
supping.

“Vex not thyself, Mother,” he said, “for I could have fought them
all if I liked; ay, and beaten them, too.”

“Why didst thou not essay it then?” cried everybody at once.

“Because I knew that I would need all my strength when I go to fight
the Giant Stoorworm,” replied Assipattle gravely.

And, as you may fancy, the others laughed louder than before.

Time passed, and every Saturday seven lassies were thrown to the
Stoorworm, until at last it was felt that this state of things could
not be allowed to go on any longer; for if it did, there would soon
be no maidens at all left in the country.

So the Elders met once more, and, after long consultation, it was
agreed that the Sorcerer should be summoned, and asked what his
other remedy was. “For, by our troth,” said they, “it cannot be
worse than that which we are practising now.”

But, had they known it, the new remedy was even more dreadful than
the old. For the cruel Queen hated her step-daughter, Gemdelovely,
and the wicked Sorcerer knew that she did, and that she would not be
sorry to get rid of her, and, things being as they were, he thought
that he saw a way to please the Queen. So he stood up in the
Council, and, pretending to be very sorry, said that the only other
thing that could be done was to give the Princess Gemdelovely to the
Stoorworm, then would it of a surety depart.

When they heard this sentence a terrible stillness fell upon the
Council, and everyone covered his face with his hands, for no man
dare look at the King.

But although his dear daughter was as the apple of his eye, he was a
just and righteous Monarch, and he felt that it was not right that
other fathers should have been forced to part with their daughters,
in order to try and save the country, if his child was to be spared.

So, after he had had speech with the Princess, he stood up before
the Elders, and declared, with trembling voice, that both he and she
were ready to make the sacrifice.

“She is my only child,” he said, “and the last of her race. Yet it
seemeth good to both of us that she should lay down her life, if by
so doing she may save the land that she loves so well.”

Salt tears ran down the faces of the great bearded men as they heard
their King's words, for they all knew how dear the Princess
Gemdelovely was to him. But it was felt that what he said was wise
and true, and that the thing was just and right; for 'twere better,
surely, that one maiden should die, even although she were of Royal
blood, than that bands of other maidens should go to their death
week by week, and all to no purpose.

So, amid heavy sobs, the aged Lawman—he who was the chief man of the
Council—rose up to pronounce the Princess's doom. But, ere he did
so, the King's Kemper— or Fighting-man—stepped forward.

“Nature teaches us that it is fitting that each beast hath a tail,”
he said; "and this Doom, which our Lawman is about to pronounce, is
in very sooth a venomous beast. And, if I had my way, the tail which
it would bear after it is this, that if the Hester Stoorworm doth
not depart, and that right speedily, after he have devoured the
Princess, the next thing that is offered to him be no tender young
maiden, but that tough, lean old Sorcerer.” And at his words there
was such a great shout of approval that the wicked Sorcerer seemed
to shrink within himself, and his pale face grew paler than it was
before.

Now, three weeks were allowed between the time that the Doom was
pronounced upon the Princess and the time that it was carried out,
so that the King might send Ambassadors to all the neighbouring
Kingdoms to issue proclamations that, if any Champion would come
forward who was able to drive away the Stoorworm and save the
Princess, he should have her for his wife.

And with her he should have the Kingdom, as well as a very famous
sword that was now in the King's possession, but which had belonged
to the great god Odin, with which he had fought and vanquished all
his foes.

The sword bore the name of Sickersnapper, and no man had any power
against it.

The news of all these things spread over the length and breadth of
the land, and everyone mourned for the fate that was like to befall
the Princess Gemdelovely. And the farmer, and his wife, and their
six sons mourned also;— all but Assipattle, who sat amongst the
ashes and said nothing.

When the King's Proclamation was made known throughout the
neighbouring Kingdoms, there was a fine stir among all the young
Gallants, for it seemed but a little thing to slay a Sea-Monster;
and a beautiful wife, a fertile Kingdom, and a trusty sword are not
to be won every day.

So six-and-thirty Champions arrived at the King’s Palace, each
hoping to gain the prize.

But the King sent them all out to look at the Giant Stoorworm lying
in the sea with its enormous mouth open, and when they saw it,
twelve of them were seized with sudden illness, and twelve of them
were so afraid that they took to their heels and ran, and never
stopped till they reached their own countries; and so only twelve
returned to the King's Palace, and as for them, they were so
downcast at the thought of the task that they had undertaken that
they had no spirit left in them at all.

And none of them dare try to kill the Stoorworm; so the three weeks
passed slowly by, until the night before the day on which the
Princess was to be sacrificed. On that night the King, feeling that
he must do something to entertain his guests, made a great supper
for them.

But, as you may think, it was a dreary feast, for everyone was
thinking so much about the terrible thing that was to happen on the
morrow, that no one could eat or drink.

And when it was all over, and everybody had retired to rest, save
the King and his old Kemperman, the King returned to the great hall,
and went slowly up to his Chair of State, high up on the dais. It
was not like the Chairs of State that we know nowadays; it was
nothing but a massive Kist, in which he kept all the things which he
treasured most.

The old Monarch undid the iron bolts with trembling fingers, and
lifted the lid, and took out the wondrous sword Sickersnapper, which
had belonged to the great god Odin.

His trusty Kemperman, who had stood by him in a hundred fights,
watched him with pitying eyes.

“Why lift ye out the sword,” he said softly, “when thy fighting days
are done? Right nobly hast thou fought thy battles in the past, oh,
my Lord! when thine arm was strong and sure. But when folk’s years
number four score and sixteen, as thine do, ’tis time to leave such
work to other and younger men.”

The old King turned on him angrily, with something of the old fire
in his eyes. “Wheest,” he cried, “else will I turn this sword on
thee. Dost thou think that I can see my only bairn devoured by a
Monster, and not lift a finger to try and save her when no other man
will? I tell thee—and I will swear it with my two thumbs crossed on
Sickersnapper—that both the sword and I will be destroyed before so
much as one of her hairs be touched. So go, an’ thou love me, my old
comrade, and order my boat to be ready, with the sail set and the
prow pointed out to sea. I will go myself and fight the Stoorworm;
and if I do not return, I will lay it on thee to guard my cherished
daughter. Peradventure, my life may redeem hers.”

Now that night everybody at the farm went to bed betimes, for next
morning the whole family was to set out early, to go to the top of
the hill near the sea, to see the Princess eaten by the Stoorworm.
All except Assipattle, who was to be left at home to herd the geese.

The lad was so vexed at this—for he had great schemes in his
head—that he could not sleep. And as he lay tossing and tumbling
about in his corner among the ashes, he heard his father and mother
talking in the great box-bed. And, as he listened, he found that
they were having an argument.

“’Tis such a long way to the hill overlooking the sea, I fear me I
shall never walk it,” said his mother. “I think I.had better bide at
home.”

“Nay,” replied her husband, “that would be a bonny-like thing, when
all the country-side is to be there. Thou shalt ride behind me on my
good mare Go-Swift.”

“I do not care to trouble thee to take me behind thee,” said his
wife, “for methinks thou dost not love me as thou wert wont to do.”

“The woman’s havering,” cried the Goodman of the house impatiently.
“What makes thee think that I have ceased to love thee?”

“Because thou wilt no longer tell me thy secrets,” answered his
wife. “To go no further, think of this very horse, Go-Swift. For
five long years I have been begging thee to tell me how it is that,
when thou ridest her, she flies faster than the wind, while if any
other man mount her, she hirples along like a broken-down nag.”

The Goodman laughed. “’Twas not for lack of love, Goodwife,” he
said, “though it might be lack of trust. For women’s tongues wag but
loosely; and I did not want other folk to ken my secret. But since
my silence hath vexed thy heart, I will e’en tell it thee.

“When I want Go-Swift to stand, I give her one clap on the left
shoulder. When I would have her go like any other horse, I give her
two claps on the right. But when I want her to fly like the wind, I
whistle through the windpipe of a goose. And, as I never ken when I
want her to gallop like that, I aye keep the bird’s thrapple in the
left-hand pocket of my coat.”

“So that is how thou managest the beast,” said the farmer’s wife, in
a satisfied tone; “and that is what becomes of all my goose
thrapples. Oh! but thou art a clever fellow, Goodman; and now that I
ken the way of it I may go to sleep.”

Assipattle was not tumbling about in the ashes now; he was sitting
up in the darkness, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes.

His opportunity had come at last, and he knew it.

He waited patiently till their heavy breathing told him that his
parents were asleep; then he crept over to where his father’s
clothes were, and took the goose’s windpipe out of the pocket of his
coat, and slipped noiselessly out of the house. Once he was out of
it, he ran like lightning to the stable. He saddled and bridled
Go-Swift, and threw a halter round her neck, and led her to the
stable door.

The good mare, unaccustomed to her new groom, pranced, and reared,
and plunged; but Assipattle, knowing his father’s secret, clapped
her once on the left shoulder, and she stood as still as a stone.
Then he mounted her, and gave her two claps on the right shoulder,
and the good horse trotted off briskly, giving a loud neigh as she
did so.

The unwonted sound, ringing out in the stillness of the night,
roused the household, and the Goodman and his six sons came tumbling
down the wooden stairs, shouting to one another in confusion that
someone was stealing Go-Swift.

The farmer was the first to reach the door; and when he saw, in the
starlight, the vanishing form of his favourite steed, he cried at
the top of his voice:

“Stop thief, ho!
Go-Swift, whoa!”

And when Go-Swift heard that she pulled up in a moment. All seemed
lost, for the farmer and his sons could run very fast indeed, and it
seemed to Assipattle, sitting motionless on Go-Swift’s back, that
they would very soon make up on him.

But, luckily, he remembered the goose’s thrapple, and he pulled it
out of his pocket and whistled through it. In an instant the good
mare bounded forward, swift as the wind, and was over the hill and
out of reach of its pursuers before they had taken ten steps more.

Day was dawning when the lad came within sight of the sea; and
there, in front of him, in the water, lay the enormous Monster whom
he had come so far to slay. Anyone would have said that he was mad
even to dream of making such an attempt, for he was but a slim,
unarmed youth, and the Mester Stoorworm was so big that men said it
would reach the fourth part round the world. And its tongue was
jagged at the end like a fork, and with this fork it could sweep
whatever it chose into its mouth, and devour it at its leisure.

For all this, Assipattle was not afraid, for he had the heart of a
hero underneath his tattered garments. “I must be cautious,” he said
to himself, “and do by my wits what I cannot do by my strength.”

He climbed down from his seat on Go-Swift’s back, and tethered the
good steed to a tree, and walked on, looking well about him, till he
came to a little cottage on the edge of a wood.

The door was not locked, so he entered, and found its occupant, an
old woman, fast asleep in bed. He did not disturb her, but he took
down an iron pot from the shelf, and examined it closely.

“This will serve my purpose,” he said; and surely the old dame would
not grudge it if she knew ’twas to save the Princess’s life.”

Then he lifted a live peat from the smouldering fire, and went his
way.

Down at the water’s edge he found the King’s boat lying, guarded by
a single boatman, with its sails set and its prow turned in the
direction of the Mester Stoor-worm.

“It’s a cold morning,” said Assipattle. “Art thou not well-nigh
frozen sitting there? If thou wilt come on shore, and run about, and
warm thyself, I will get into the boat and guard it till thou
returnest.”

"A likely story,” replied the man. “And what would the King say if
he were to come, as I expect every moment he will do, and find me
playing myself on the sand, and his good boat left to a smatchet
like thee? ’Twould be as much as my head is worth.”

“As thou wilt,” answered Assipattle carelessly, beginning to search
among the rocks. "In the meantime, I must be looking for a wheen
mussels to roast for my breakfast.” And after he had gathered the
mussels, he began to make a hole in the sand to put the live peat
in. The boatman watched him curiously, for he, too, was beginning to
feel hungry.

Presently the lad gave a wild shriek, and jumped high in the air.
"Gold, gold!” he cried. “By the name of Thor, who would have looked
to find gold here?”

This was too much for
the boatman. Forgetting all about his head and the King, he jumped
out of the boat, and, pushing Assipattle aside, began to scrape
among the sand with all his might.

While he was doing so, Assipattle seized his pot, jumped into the
boat, pushed her off, and was half a mile out to sea before the
outwitted man, who, needless to say, could find no gold, noticed
what he was about.

And, of course, he was very angry, and the old King was more angry
still when he came down to the shore, attended by his Nobles and
carrying the great sword Sickersnapper, in the vain hope that he,
poor feeble old man that he was, might be able in some way to defeat
the Monster and save his daughter.

But to make such an attempt was beyond his power now that his boat
was gone. So he could only stand on the shore, along with the fast
assembling crowd of his subjects, and watch what would befall.

And this was what befell!

Assipattle, sailing slowly over the sea, and watching the Mester
Stoorworm intently, noticed that the terrible Monster yawned
occasionally, as if longing for his weekly feast. And as it yawned a
great flood of sea-water went down its throat, and came out again at
its huge gills.

So the brave lad took down his sail, and pointed the prow of his
boat straight at the Monster’s mouth, and the next time it yawned he
and his boat were sucked right in, and, like Jonah, went straight
down its throat into the dark regions inside its body. On and on the
boat floated; but as it went the water grew less, pouring out of the
Stoorworm’s gills, till at last it stuck, as it were,
on dry land. And Assipattle jumped out, his pot in his hand, and
began to explore.

Presently he came to the huge creature's liver, and having heard
that the liver of a fish is full of oil, he made a hole in it and
put in the live peat.

Woe's me! but there was a conflagration! And Assipattle just got
back to his boat in time; for the Mester Stoorworm, in its
convulsions, threw the boat right out of its mouth again, and it was
flung up, high and dry, on the bare land.

The commotion in the sea was so terrible that the King and his
daughter—who by this time had come down to the shore dressed like a
bride, in white, ready to be thrown to the Monster—and all his
Courtiers, and all the countryfolk, were fain to take refuge on the
hill top, out of harm's way, and stand and see what happened next.

And this was what happened next.

The poor, distressed creature—for it was now to be pitied, even
although it was a great, cruel, awful Mester Stoorworm—tossed itself
to and fro, twisting and writhing.

And as it tossed its awful head out of the water its tongue fell
out, and struck the earth with such force that it made a great dent
in it, into which the sea rushed. And that dent formed the crooked
Straits which now divide Denmark from Norway and Sweden.

Then some of its teeth fell out and rested in the sea, and became
the Islands that we now call the Orkney Isles; and a little
afterwards some more teeth dropped out, and they became what we now
call the Shetland Isles.

After that the creature twisted itself into a great lump and died;
and this lump became the Island of Iceland; and the fire which
Assipattle had kindled with his live peat still burns on underneath
it, and that is why there are mountains which throw out fire in that
chilly land.

When at last it was plainly seen that the Mester Stoor-worm was
dead, the King could scarce contain himself with joy. He put his
arms round Assipattle’s neck, and kissed him, and called him his
son. And he took off his own Royal Mantle and put it on the lad, and
girded his good sword Sickersnapper round his waist. And he called
his daughter, the Princess Gemdelovely, to him, and put her hand in
his, and declared that when the right time came she should be his
wife, and that he should be ruler over all the Kingdom.

Then the whole company mounted their horses again, and Assipattle
rode on Go-Swift by the Princess's side; and so they returned, with
great joy, to the King's Palace.

But as they were nearing the gate Assipattle's sister, she who was
the Princess’s maid, ran out to meet him, and signed to the Princess
to lout down, and whispered something in her ear.

The Princess's face grew dark, and she turned her horse’s head and
rode back to where her father was, with his Nobles. She told him the
words that the maiden had spoken; and when he heard them his face,
too, grew as black as thunder.

For the matter was this: The cruel Queen, full of joy at the thought
that she was to be rid, once for all, of her stepdaughter, had been
making love to the wicked Sorcerer all the morning in the old King's
absence.

“Thou wilt have much ado to find him, your Majesty," said the girl,
“for it's more than an hour since he and the Queen fled together on
the fleetest horses that they could find in the stables."

“But I can find him," cried Assipattle; and he went off like the
wind on his good horse Go-Swift.

It was not long before he came within sight of the fugitives, and he
drew his sword and shouted to them to stop.

They heard the shout, and turned round, and they both laughed aloud
in derision when they saw that it was only the boy who grovelled in
the ashes who pursued them.

“The insolent brat! I will cut off his head for him. I will teach
him a lesson!" cried the Sorcerer; and he rode boldly back to meet
Assipattle. For although he was no fighter, he knew that no ordinary
weapon could harm his enchanted body; therefore he was not afraid.

But he did not count on Assipattle having the Sword of the great god
Odin, with which he had slain all his enemies; and before this magic
weapon he was powerless. And, at one thrust, the young lad ran it
through his body as easily as if he had been any ordinary man, and
he fell from his horse, dead.

Then the Courtiers of the King, who had also set off in pursuit, but
whose steeds were less fleet of foot than Go-Swift, came up, and
seized the bridle of the Queen’s horse, and led it and its rider
back to the Palace.

She was brought before the Council, and judged, and condemned to be
shut up in a high tower for the remainder of her life. Which thing
surely came to pass.

As for Assipattle, when the proper time came he was married to the
Princess Gemdelovely, with great feasting and rejoicing. And when
the old King died they ruled the Kingdom for many a long year.

This comment system requires
you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an
account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or
Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these
companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All
comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator
has approved your comment.